Wintry Weather Potential Is Still There This Weekend

After a frigid day for Thursday, all eyes turn to this weekend’s storm system that’s bringing every mode of precipitation with it as it crosses into the Ohio Valley. I don’t expect this to be a major storm for south-central Kentucky but the wintry weather potential is still there this weekend.

Rather Quiet for Friday

But ahead of this system, Friday’s daylight hours should be a-okay as the last vestiges of high pressure that kept us calm and cool begin to slip on to the north.

Tomorrow’s afternoon surface chart. (WPC)

With northwesterly winds shifting east and clouds slowly streaming in from the west, our temperatures should make a bit of a jump from yesterday’s frigidity. Clouds will increase throughout the daytime hours, allowing us to top out right around 45º. Then comes the precip.

The NAM has precip breaking out in the area somewhere between 6pm and midnight tonight, earlier to the west, obviously. Precip type will all depend on temperatures both at the surface and aloft.

Us trying to figure out just how this event will unfold. (MLB Advanced Media)

Indications are that we’ll start off as just a bit of rain and even though we’ll have some warm air aloft nosing in we’ll mix in a little bit of snow during the evening hours. It’s going to be a close call because lows will be right around 32º overnight.

Soggy Saturday

No matter what, we should transition to a cold rain during the morning hours on Saturday before entering a lull around midday.

Can you say “hello, low pressure?” (Pivotal Weather)

It’s during this lull that we should see temperatures rise to around 42-43º before rain resumes in the evening. Temperatures won’t fall all that much, only to around 40º tomorrow night. This means that even if we see some snow mix in, the likelihood that things stick is small.

Similar Sunday

At this point, the system should begin to exit the region. Can’t rule out some early snow mixing in but it should be plain rain as things begin to wind down across the region. Scattered showers stick with us through the day as we see a high near 43º or so again. We fall back to near freezing again Sunday night.

The Bottom Line

I’m still not seeing this system being a huge deal for our area. Temperature profiles will be a bit to warm to see extended periods of snowfall. At the same time, I do we will see some snowfall. The NWS agrees that we will see snowfall, just not a lot of it.

NWS official snowfall forecast from early this morning. (NWS Louisville)

The greatest threat and confidence for heavier accumulating snowfall will be in southern Indiana with lighter totals in parts of northern Kentucky. Totals in our area will stay below 1 inch and any accumulation will be minor. Just keep an eye out for slick roadways, especially on elevated surface such as bridges and overpasses.

As of early this morning, the National Weather Service has extended a Winter Weather Advisory into just one county in our area. Congratulations, Edmonson County, you win the sweepstakes of falling under criteria! This will be for minor accumulations and run from tonight through tomorrow morning.

Of course, we’ll have updates throughout the weekend on the blog and on social media as necessary.

That just about does it for me! Follow our live weather feed @wxornotbg for the latest on this evolving and ever-changing forecast. Have a terrific Friday!